Peter and Harriet are married and travel to a house they have bought in the country for their honeymoon, but find it unprepared for them. The next morning the former owner is found dead in the cellar. At least equal time is given to the relationship between Peter and Harriet and the adjustments they and Bunter make. The beginning, describing various reactions to the news of their engagement is very funny and there is not too much actual detection. The culprit is accidentally surprised into a confession and there were not that many suspects to start with. I wonder what happened to Joe Sellon... ( )

Peter and Harriet are married and head to a cottage they have purchased in the country where they intend to have a quiet honeymoon. The man who sold them the house is not anywhere to be found when they arrive, and they need to find someone who has the keys to let them in. There is some very amusing dialog in this book, and I found myself laughing out loud at several points. Of course the body is found, and the newly married couple work the case together. 4 stars

I have finished my Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey binge. And, I must say that it was most satisfying. The mysteries are fairly complex, with amusing dialog in parts, and a wonderful cast of characters. All of the stories stand on their own, although I would think that you must read the ones which feature the Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane romance in order. Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon.

I had so much fun reading these, that I think I will have to read them all again in another 10 or 15 years. ( )

Another re-read, following on from Gaudy Night. Ahh, those first days of marriage, when you can't quite get used to the idea of being married, when you wander around with a daft grin on your face, when you get used the the other person being there, and when you discover that the previous owner of the house has been lying dead in your cellar. All does not go well on Harriet & Peter's wedding night. They are successfully smuggled from the wedding breakfast and into the house they've bought in the country, but from there is goes less well. The house is shut up and locked, no sign of the previous owner. The cast assembles itself, the nosy neighbour, the niece, the gardener, the sweep,the vicar - all the local characters are present and correct. And so the mystery is revealed. The elements are all there, they fit together neatly, but the joy of the re-read is that you can see them coming together in a way that you don't on the first time of asking. Alongside the detective side you have the ongoing relationship between Harriet & Peter, they're still finding their way together and the blossoming relationship shouldn't fit with the rather sordid murder, but it does, if only as counterpoint. This ends with an execution, but it also ends with Peter in his Harriet's arms and all will b well - possibly not without its ups and downs, but they will survive this as so much else. ( )

My first Sayers (I know, I know, I'm reading them out of order), and I enjoyed it immensely. Some excellent laugh-out-loud lines and a nice complex mystery. Now to go back and start at the beginning ... ( )

Description: Lord Peter Wimsey and his bride, mystery writer Harriet Vane, start their honeymoon with murder. The former owner of Tallboys estate is dead in the cellar with a misspelled "notise" to the milkman, not a spot of blood on his smashed skull, and £600 in his pocket.

That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. . . . I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split . . . a lover is more condoling. Shakespeare: A Midsummer-Night's Dream.

Dedication

TO MURIEL ST. CLARE BYRNE, HELEN SIMPSON AND MARJORIE BARBER

Dear Muriel, Helen, and Bar, With what extreme of womanly patience you listened to the tale of Busman's Honeymoon while it was being written, the Lord He knoweth. I do not like to think how many times I tired the sun with talking--and if at any time they had told me you were dead, I should easily have believed that I had talked you into your graves. But you have strangely survived to receive these thanks. You, Muriel, were in some sort a predestined victim, since you wrote with me the play to which this novel is but the limbs and outward flourishes; my debt and your long-suffering are all the greater. You, Helen and Bar, were wantonly sacrificed on the altar of that friendship of which the female sex is said to be incapable; let the lie stick i' the wall! To all three I humbly bring, I dedicate with tears, this sentimental comedy. It has been said, by myself and others, that a love-interest is only an intrusion upon a detective story. But to the characters involved, the detective-interest might well seem an irritating intrusion upon their love-story. This book deals with such a situation. It also provides some sort of answer to many kindly inquiries as to how Lord Peter and his Harriet solved their matrimonial problem. If there is but a ha'porth of detection to an intolerable deal of saccharine, let the occasion be the excuse. Yours in all gratitute, Dorothy L. Sayers

First words

Prothalamion: MARRIAGES WIMSEY-VANE.

Chapter I: Mr. Mervyn Bunter, patiently seated in the Daimler on the far side of Regent's Park, reflected that time was getting on.

Quotations

... May I express the hope that the present union may happily exemplify that which we find in a first-class port---strength of body fortified by a first-class spirit and mellowing through many years to a noble maturity. [Bunter's wedding toast]

Last words

So she held him, crouched at her knees, against her breast, huddling his head in her arms that he might not hear eight o'clock strike.

Note: Busman's Honeymoon subtitled A Love Story with Detective Interruptions is a novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. It should not be confused with Busman's Honeymoon subtitled A Detective Comedy in Three Acts, a play, which was penned by Dorothy L. Sayers and M[uriel] St. Clare Byrne.

Wikipedia in English

Murder is hardly the best way for Lord Peter and his bride, the famous mystery writer Harriet Vane, to start their honeymoon. It all begins when the former owner of their newly acquired estate is found quite nastily dead in the cellar. All too quickly, what Lord Peter had hoped would be a very private and romantic stay in the country has turned into a most baffling case, with a misspelled "notise" to the milkman at its center and a dead man who's been discovered in a most intriguing condition: with not a spot of blood on his smashed skull and not a penny less than six hundred pounds in his pocket.